Milly Thompson

Context

Trigun (トライガン) was a 1995-2008 manga  series that was later adapted as an anime . It takes place on the planet Gunsmoke, where a seemingly superhuman but amnesiac called Vash the Stampede is accused of destroying a city, and chased by numerous bounty hunters.

Milly is just about the poster child for characters that come off as extremely ditzy, but at the same time have some sort of deeply buried intelligence. A great model for an idiot savant type character.

This profile includes S P O I L E R S for this excellent series.

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Background

Powers & Abilities

Milly is physically powerful. She is capable of doing heavy manual labor and carrying hefty loads with ease.

She’s also a pretty competent gun fighter — perhaps not quite to the cinematic level, but she’s good enough to usually take down a couple of thugs in most gun battles.

At first blush she seems incredibly ditzy and dull witted. But on several occasions she’s shown perceptive abilities that border on almost precognitive. However, her innocent and trusting demeanor and short attention span mean that she is rarely suspicious of what she sees and has trouble focusing on such minor details.

Milly’s “stun gun” is large and has multiple rotating barrels. However instead of being fully automatic and instead of firing bullets it fires long skinny metallic cylinders. These almost immediately spring into X shaped pellets that are large enough to incapacitate most people.

It is also powerful enough to knock over a large truck. It basically knocks anything back that isn’t bolted down.

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History

Milly comes from a large loving family that are rather close. They keep in contact with her however much she travels.

She is first seen traveling with her supervisor Meryl Stryfe on assignment from their employer the Bernaldi Insurance Company. They are to track down the mysterious legendary gun fighter Vash the Stampede the man with the legendary 60 billion double dollars bounty on his head.

Red coat

The search proved difficult. No one seemed to know what he looked like, other than he wore a red coat. They soon manage to capture a geeky guy in a red coat, but have their doubts as to whether he could be the legendary gun fighter.

Shortly after that they themselves are taken hostage by Descartes and his gang of outlaws. Descartes also wears a red coat, and so does the bounty hunter Loose Ruth who showed up shortly later hoping to collect said bounty. This led to a shoot out between Ruth and Descartes – since no one knew exactly who Vash was and everyone wanted to collect the bounty.

During the gun fight the geeky guy that they took hostage managed to get free. Seemingly by luck, he made short work of both Ruth and Descartes while completely unarmed. Milly and Meryl parted ways with him after he freed them. He couldn’t possibly be the legendary Vash the Stampede, could he?

The hunt continues

Their next lead took them to a water well owned by Mr. Cliff. Supposedly Cliff had hired Vash the Stampede to guard his well (in hopes that his reputation would scare any bandits off). It was later revealed that Cliff had been stealing the nearby town’s water supply and then charging them ludicrous rates to get their water from him.

With the help of an undercover sheriff named Marianne the whole plot was uncovered. The geeky guy managed to once again, seemingly by luck, save the women from harm. He then abruptly left before his identity could be confirmed. Marianne being a sheriff seemed to make him nervous.

Meryl and Milly were later stuck in a small inn in a small town to wait out a sandstorm. They and a card playing woman were taken hostage and held by a gang.

The gang’s leader revealed to them that the card playing woman was actually the mayor’s daughter. The town’s sheriff had been killing their farming relatives to take their land, and the mayor helped him cover it up.

During this the geek in the red coat walked in, and was also taken hostage. The sheriff then sent in a group of highly unsavory thugs, hoping that the ensuing bloodshed would keep everything a secret. The two women and the guy in the red coat managed to shoot their way out. Once again the geeky guy disappeared shortly after.

Later Meryl and Milly headed to another small town who claimed to have caught Vash the Stampede in order to get their failed power plant back on line. They arrived and found it to be none other than the same geeky guy in the red coat.

Things went sour. The Nebraska Gang originally hired by the mayor as extra muscle decided that they’d rather keep the entire reward for themselves. For the first time Vash actually used his gun. He captured the Nebraska Gang, thus allowing the town to use their bounty to get their plant back online.

All aboard

Shortly after that Vash boarded a sand steamer (a large freighter type land vehicle that carries passengers as well) and the women followed him. They took part time jobs in the cafeteria to pay their way.

Milly eventually found it odd that Vash was buying so many snacks so shortly after dinner. This was because he had taken in an orphan out of sympathy. This observation was one of the major hints that Milly was far smarter than she appeared to be.

The Bad Lad Gang took over the steamer in order to claim the treasure in its vault. But since they couldn’t actually get into the vault their plan became to drive the steamer off a cliff, along with the hostages they’d taken, to crack it open. Milly and Meryl broke free and subdued many of the Bad Lad Gang on their own. Then Vash had a showdown with the Bad Lad’s leader.

The crash was averted through the combined effort of scraping it along the side of a mountain and the ingenuity of the orphan Vash had taken in earlier.

As they kept traveling, a mysterious priest named Nicolas D. Wolfwood boarded their bus. He would eventually become Meryl’s love interest.

In the company of Wolfwood

At the next town Milly, while shopping for pudding, helped Wolfwood win a game of chess for his next bus fare. He bought her some pudding to express his gratitude. Shortly after this a dancing girl crashed into them, spilling out the pudding from the Milly’s sack.

She was running from some thugs. In the confusion one of them managed to step on one of pudding packets. In a rage, Milly soundly knocked them all out.

The dancing girl then explained that she had been sold into slavery, and was trying to escape. This prompted Thompson and Wolfwood to sneak her out of town. They strapped the petite dancer to Milly’s stomach, with Milly pretending to be pregnant. This was also the first real hint given that Milly and Wolfwood might get romantically involved later.

Thus, the dancer could be reunited with her lover. Then, Vash showed up under the guise of being hired to take them back. But he defused the situation by pretending to kill them in full view of his employers so that they could safely get away.

The road always goes on

In the next town Vash was apprehended by the local sheriff. But a madman named Monev the Gail showed up and started shooting everyone in town in an effort to get to Vash. Meryl and Milly freed Vash so he could stop the bloodshed. On the next day Milly once again wrote to her family to tell them of her adventures while travelling.

Milly and Meryl were carried to the next town, since Vash had wrecked their car. There he got into a fight with the Gung Ho Guns. After some confusion Vash was able to best them and told the ladies that he now had to part ways with them.

Milly and Meryl decided to keep following Vash regardless. But when nearing the town where he was supposedly headed they saw a giant beam shoot up to the sky. When they arrived Vash was nowhere to be found.

Shortly after that they received a letter from the insurance company. It stated that it would no longer be necessary for them to tail Vash. He had been deemed an “act of God”, not subject to any sort of coverage.

Back to the office, for a time

The ladies then returned to their more normal office lives. Milly was forced to do demeaning clean up duty as punishment for repeatedly being late to work. Shortly after that the newspapers revealed that Vash was still alive and well. This sudden publicity forced their insurance company to repeal their earlier statement about Vash not being covered in their insurance policies.

Meryl and Milly were swiftly reassigned to tracking Vash down.

After they followed several leads and bore witness to more destruction left in Vash’s wake, they escaped another brief hostage situation. Then they were able to finally track him down to an inn, but he left early the next day. Vash left a note behind telling them not to follow him anymore.

Shortly after that a space ship crashed in the nearby dessert. The pair followed it, thinking Vash to be somehow connected with the vessel. They arrived just in time to see him grieving over one of the ship’s passengers.

On the next day a small boy stole their car. This forced them to follow him. As a result, they discovered a mostly deserted town housing several orphans. Out of compassion the adults tried their best to help the orphan children out. Shortly after that an angry mob arrived to hang Vash for all the trouble he’d caused.

Sandworms attack

Meryl, Milly, and Wolfwood all tried to peacefully resolve the situation. But a group of gigantic sandworms arrived, and started wreaking havoc.

After the harrowing experience of trying to protect the innocents from the sand worms Vash figured out that one of the children was actually Zazie the Beast. Zazie was one of the Gung Ho Guns who had been causing him so much trouble previously.

Vash then shot Zazie’s hair ornament. It was allowing him to control the sand worms. The Stampede then tried to talk Zazie into surrendering. Looking to fight to the death Zazier drew a gun, but Wolfwood shot him dead before he could use it. Since Wolfwood had gunned Zazie down in full view of Vash, Milly, Meryl, and the innocent children it caused an obvious rift in the group.

Later that night Milly went to confront Wolfwood about him killing Zazie. The full scene wasn’t shown. But it appears that they reconciled their differences and slept together for the first time that night.

The next day Vash and Wolfwood had another argument over the killing, but it was interrupted by more Gung Ho Guns. Vash went off to the desert to face Caine the Longshot. Wolfwood stayed in town to take on his former mentor Chapel the Evergreen.

Big guns

Both heroes emerged victorious. But after Wolfwood bested his former mentor Legato, the leader of the guns used his control power to make Chapel fatally shoot Wolfwood in the back. Wolfwood’s death was rather hard on Milly and she appeared to grieve like a widow.

Shortly after that Vash was forced into another confrontation with Midvalley Hornfreak. In the ensuing chaos Meryl and Milly were abducted by a group of townspeople. The mob, being under Legato’s mental domination, then bound and gagged the girls and proceeded to use them as target practice.

Vash was eventually forced to take a life for the first time. He shot Legato dead to save the girls. The act of taking a life pushed him into a deep depression.

Not long after that another angry mob came for Vash howling for blood. He refused to fight back. Meryl was finally able to talk the mob down. That made Vash realize that he would be able to confront Knives his evil twin without killing him.

Milly’s parting gift to Vash was Wolfwood’s cross. That played a key role in Vash being able to defeat his evil twin.

Description

Milly is a rather large muscular woman who is more than capable of doing heavy manual labor.

She has long light brown hair and is usually seen smiling.

She typically dresses in a white dress shirt with a brown tie and slacks. She also wears a tan duster with a blue collar over it.

Like most of the other characters in the Trigun universe it looks very Wild West style. When not in her suit she typically seems to dress in loose functional clothing.

Personality

Milly is warm-hearted and genuinely optimistic about almost everything. She always tries to do the right thing. She is kind to those in need and quite sensitive to the people around her. She’s almost never down.

At first blush her intelligence may seem questionable at best. Indeed she does seem to personify a sort of ditzy air head. In actuality, she’s quite observant. But while she actually does scratch the surface of most things, she lacks the brain power to coherently understand what she notices.

Her love of sweets, particularly pudding is quite obvious. She’s obsessive enough about it that she’ll fly into a rage if someone wastes good sweets.

Wolfwood

Her relationship with Wolfwood seemed to start off innocently enough. Before any romantic interest was apparent they just seemed like a couple of good friends. They spent time together whenever they got a chance. Though it did grow strained after some of Wolfwood’s morally questionable actions, there seemed to be a genuine deep love between them.

Initially it seemed like a case of opposites attracting. But a deeper examination would reveal that the hopelessly optimistic and positive Milly seemed to bring out the best traits in Wolfwood despite all the blood on his hands.

When Wolfwood died Milly grew deeply depressed and grieved like a widow. But she was able to snap out of it and give Vash a warm good-bye. She also gave him Wolfwood’s cross, saying that Nicholas would’ve wanted Vash to have it.

Quotes

“I have a separate stomach for cake and ice-cream.”

“My sister told me I should always help those in need.”

“The scars you experience on your journey will be the unforgettable memories of your life.”

“Wastage of food is punishable by Heaven !”

“That happened to be my can of pudding, and you wasted it !”

“It must have slipped my mind-darn it, I hate being wrong… I feel so silly.”

“You should never get between people and their pudding !”

“I guess that means we’re going to be dragged into trouble again.”

“What do we do, Meryl ?”

“That’s cute !”

“Well, I’m being punished for coming in late for work, 20 times in row.”

DC Universe History

Her and Meryl are pretty much a team and could easily be inserted as is. To keep with the concept of her character she could, in most settings, easily be the same insurance agent sent after another misunderstood hero responsible for massive amounts of property damage.

Lobo or one the more particularly irresponsible characters that cause a lot of property damage might be particularly appropriate.

By Tom Eilers.

Source of Character: Trigun animated series.

Helper(s): Wikipedia, Peter Piispanen, Darci.